Top Al-Qaeda commander killed in drone attack in North Waziristan : US official

LONDON - A top Al-Qaeda commander, wanted in connection with the bombing of the CIA base in Afghanistan, has been killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan’s Miranshah city, US officials said.

According to a US counter-terrorism official, Hussein al-Yemeni, the mastermind of the suicide attack on a CIA base in Khost in December, in which seven senior US intelligence officials were killed, was killed in a “precise” missile hit in Pakistan’s restive North Waziristan region earlier this month.

“Yemeni was said to be in his late 20s or early 30s and specialised in bombs and suicide operations,” The BBC quoted the official, as saying.

“He was a conduit in Pakistan for funds, messages and recruits,” the official added.

Al-Yemeni was considered an important Al-Qaeda planner and explosives expert who had established contacts with groups ranging from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to Afghan and Pakistani Taliban militant groups.

Meanwhile, in an interview with The Washington Post, Central Investigation Agency’s (CIA) Director Leon Panetta said aggressive attacks against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region have driven Osama bin Laden and his top commander deeper into hiding and disrupted their ability to plan sophisticated operations.

“Those operations are seriously disrupting al-Qaeda. It’s pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run,” Panetta said. (ANI)